The Golden Compass (Movie)

So, just on Friday I had the opportunity to see The Golden Compass at the theater here in Marion, IN. To my liking there were no signs of a boycott or angry maliciousness from moviegoers. All in all it was a good experience.

As far as the movie goes it was a great movie for entertainment. I had a friend come along with me that discussed some of it afterwards, which was quite enjoyable. The movie though was done very well with the graphics, acting, and making it an entertaining movie. As suspected they attempted to hide/take out/water down, the religious elements of this movie. Although they tried they must not have tried very hard, with all the publicity about the religious nature of this story an infant could have picked up on the religious undertones of this movie.

The story line followed the book fairly well, except the movie ran along so quickly that it seemed they tried to cram everything into the film that it was like running for 2 hours at a full sprint. The ending was very strategic, for in the book the ending is where Lyra finds out the true intentions of her father and the "Dust" where she decides to make sure that the dust is open and good for everyone, in the movie this was left out. If you thought this was bad the next two movies in this trilogy are going to be even more subversive than the first.

Overall an entertaining movie, it was very subtle and very much geared for kids to be interested. Albeit the books were written for adolescents the movie was blatant in this for the obvious main character being a young girl, and the vast majority of her supporting cast being children and their "daemons", which usually were cute little fuzzy creatures. The movie has some obvious religious elements that are there and if you don't pick up on them then you might want to watch it again after you read your Bible. Ultimately this movie will draw kids to the books and when that happens they have great potential to confuse them and possibly lead them astray. This potential is even greater now that The Golden Compass topped the Box Office charts @ $26 million. I wouldn't spend the money to go see this again, but was glad I did.

Nonetheless this doesn't give us as Christians the right to be attacking Pullman's integrity or his views. Yes they may be wrong and yes they may confuse some of our kids. Rather than attacking him, why not sit down and read the Bible with your kids, teach them, lead them to God's throne. Allow Scripture to sink into their hearts and have that help them make decisions.